From start to finish

November 1st 2012

When shopping for a diamond engagement ring if you do not understand what determines the value of a diamond chances are you will pay too much for what you are getting or end up with a lower quality than you would accept if you knew the basics of diamonds.

Once a design for a diamond engagement ring is finalised the diamond qualities to be used can be selected by two methods:

- the best diamonds possible within a given budget- specify specific sizes, colour & clarity of diamonds

The first method allows customers to know what I can provide to meet their budget. They can then go out and compare the qualities of diamonds that others can supply for the same budget and design.

The second method is for me to give a price for specific diamond grades selected by my customer in a given design. They can then go out and get quotes elsewhere for the same design and quality diamonds.

Today I want to tell you about Zac who contacted me after visiting this website. He had found a design he liked (pictured right), had a definite budget and wanted to know what I could provide for that amount. Soon after I had some diamond details for him to consider and we met to discuss the properties of those diamonds.

Size, colour and clarity all affect the value of diamonds. It is important that customers know these details when comparing diamond rings. In the case of larger diamonds cut, polish, symmetry, fluorescence and girdle width are all important properties that should be known and understood before committing to a purchase. During our meeting I explained all of this to Zac.

A couple of weeks passed before I heard from Zac again. He had been shopping around as I had encouraged him to do and decided to have me make his ring. The next step was to make a silver draft for Zac to confirm that the design he had only seen pictures of was definitely what he wanted.

After Zac had approved the draft we discussed wedding rings and I did some quick mock ups of the design he thought he would like later. A little planning for the wedding ring when you make the engagement ring can save a lot of grief later on down the track. The important thing we discovered with Zac was that we needed to make some alterations to the design to allow for a straight wedder as he did not like the idea of a curved or fitted wedding ring

With the design, diamond qualities and future wedding ring decided on we were ready to create the ring.

With the ring ready the next part was for Zac to get his girlfriend to say yes to his proposal ..... which he was able to do :)

Shoot forward some time and we come to the making of the matching wedding ring. Zac`s fiancee wanted to look at varying the size of the diamonds in the wedding ring. I edited up some images.

With the preferred diamond size selected the wedding ring was made to plan and is pictured below with engagement ring.

Both rings were made in 18ct palladium white gold. The centre diamond of the engagement ring weighs half a carat, is GIA certified and laser inscribed. All of the smaller diamonds used in the rings match the colour and clarity of the main diamond.